I was frowned upon at my slave gig for not being a snitch.
The policy was to report the lowly newbies or other for doing something wrong in the admin of client files. I get, it was annoying when a mistake so obvious was apparent and it made your job harder because you had to fix their error. But…if it wasn’t too bad, and I could tell what had happened, I’d just fix it and carry on..rather than go through official forms to essentially tattle and inform the person’s boss that they needed re-training etc. Mistakes happen. Shit happens.
There was a distinct culture of making reports on fellow employees, I get some of it, you were supposed to report internal fraud and things of that nature but I didn’t like to make someone have any blemish on their record or get a talking to because they made a mistake. There were times when one could tell the “mistake” was because the other person wanted to avoid the workload, or they shouldn’t have attempted the complex task and didn’t have the balls to admit they didn’t know what they were doing and then enlist someone who did. Those ones did piss me off and I’d been there long enough to identify when someone had done that.
Simply looking up the position tree, where that person sat on it- they higher up they were making the “mistake” usually meant they couldn’t be bothered, and it was rare. The lower the person’s name was within the company, it was usually that they genuinely thought they knew what they were doing and got it wrong OR they were trying to fake it til they made it.
Did I dob/snitch/tattle on some? Over a decade, yes I did. Some of it was just them being vindictive or lazy and it pissed me off when it was so obvious, but overall, I let a lot go.
I understand what it’s like to be a n00b just trying your best.
In Team Meetings I would openly say I felt bad for people who were being treated harshly over innocent mistakes, and that I’ll fix their mistake rather than get crazy about it. I’d occasionally shoot them a private message if I could tell it wasn’t an innocent mistake, if they had got in over their head or if they had done it on purpose. This notion was met with disapproving looks and some chatter about whether it was the right thing to do.
In the grand scheme of things, a lot of these mistakes didn’t (and don’t) matter. I didn’t spend most of my time at the job and I had been through a lot in the real world, the place wasn’t a be-all-end-all thing for me. I was performing, singing, painting, writing, publishing, and doing all the regular things people do in their spare time. I was in abusive relationships that took up my head space, health issues that dominated. Working the slave gig was not my only focus. I had a different perspective to the women who had been there 20 years and the new GIRL BOSS FEMINIST-BLUE HAIRED-types trying to carve out a reputation for themselves as a “good” Team Leader who got the results that looked good on paper…while the team was stressed, fatigued and found her unapproachable.
The point? As with most posts I tag as “GAME-related,” you don’t have to be a gamer to get it.
I play a lot of Overwatch and have previously written about it. This time when I logged in, I had 2 messages thanking me for reporting someone else.
If/when you report another player, the Powers that Be review the game footage and either ignore you because you were being a snowflake or hand out punishments. I’ve never been on a receiving end but I have a friend who is a loose cannon with his insults and doesn’t “read the room.” He would get “muted” (unable to engage in chat or typing with the teams.) Then he received an email saying he would be banned for a month. When it happened again and he was suspended for a month again, it was the last straw before they terminated his account.It’s nuanced too, sometimes you make enemies who will deliberately try to do things like that to you. Gaming is now full of snowflakes. You know, the ones that have their avatar as the flag of the current virtue signal thing. People struggling to find a personality and thus take on whatever is in fashion. MUH SAFE SPACES.
-but it just means if you feel there is a need to shut someone down…you get more strategic/creative about telling someone to eat shit. Some people didn’t get the memo, I guess.
I’m confessing; I did snitch on two people last week. They were in a COMP game (competitive/world ranking) and were deliberately jumping off things and killing their character over and over again, not engaging, not making kills, not even faking that they were trying…they just sabotaged everyone else’s chance at climbing the ladder. It pissed me off. The other was similar, they weren’t doing well but kept saying it was everyone else’s fault and when they were asked to swap to a more effective character they insulted everyone then sat in the spawn (saferoom) and around it, not engaging, but taunting the team in chat and telling us they were going to tank our scores.
At this point, years into what some might say is a “dead game,” a lot of people make jokes at the beginning of matches about hating it, yet coming back because they’re addicted. Overwatch is one of many games I play but indeed one I usually play at least once a day. Due to the influx of people who got the game for free, only a few seem to care about playing well. I have to admit, I know it’s pointless to try and climb rank most of the time, so I play for fun or to get frustration out. But I still do a good job and wouldn’t waste my or anyone else’s time deliberately jumping to my characters demise just to annoy others.
Did I do the right thing?!
What would you do?
I took a break, I just didn’t feel like creating content or writing…for the first time in my life. Worries, chores, commitments and health issues; it was more of the same struggles, not much writing/content creation, and not much EverEden or craft stuff. I’ve been reminded that it never stops. So, I’m back. I initially wanted to do a stream on the subject of firearms in Australia and the laws surrounding.. I’d planned to do a steam on it months ago. I also wanted to get back to finally publishing that book, you know the one.